Emissary of the Lord

In deep surrounding silence still I lay

Drifting from the outward world of sense

Where night is lost in splendid rifts of day

To sleep, and entered a zone of experience

No reason could explain yet scarce refute,

Guided by one who knew the realms of birth

And life and death and afterlife, as mute

I rose to watch my presence here on earth.

From the realm of subtle matter, not in trance

Nor as images projected on a wall,

But living beings I knew at a single glance

To be my father, mother, family, all

Seated beside me on a parapet fronting the sea.

He showed me my life as if on videotape

My weaknesses, attachments, history

And perhaps a glimpse of the future should I escape

The iron chain of karma that held me bound

To a body unfamiliar, ego-based

Where no essential silence could be found,

For in the grooves of mind desire raced

From thwarted end to oft unsated goal,

A puppet or a sad automaton.

In love he taught the lessons of my soul

And then the day began and he was gone.

In a reality more palpable than pain

Each night he came to teach through occult ways

Counselling me in patience to abstain

From anger and the turbulence of my days.

This chosen emissary of the Lord

In parable and symbol guided me

And to my listening heart revealed the word,

Departing as he came, in majesty.